


Try to Spit the Venom Out

by clottedcreamfudge



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Alec figuring out what he wants, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demons, First Kiss, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Discovery, Supportive Magnus Bane, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29285376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clottedcreamfudge/pseuds/clottedcreamfudge
Summary: And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Alec didn’t come here because he was afraid of what his parents would do, or of the look Izzy would give him when he entered the building. He’s been dealing with the impossible goals set for him by his parents, as well as Izzy’s well-meaning hovering, for a great deal longer than is really reasonable.He came here tonight because he wanted to. He wants to be here, with Magnus, because it feels better than being anywhere else.➸Alec trusts Magnus to help him when he gets hurt, even if he doesn't know why.(He thinks he might know why.)
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 42
Kudos: 240





	Try to Spit the Venom Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tintagel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tintagel/gifts).



Alec shouldn’t be out here, shouldn’t be patrolling at all. He’s not on the roster; has so much else he could be doing; is probably going to get in a whole world of trouble with his parents when he finds his way back to the Institute. 

He has twelve texts on his phone, the majority of them from Izzy, and only the top three are visible now, in reverse order.

**[From: Izzy] [13:42]**

_I’m serious Alec where tf are you, mom looks like she’s gonna blow a fuse_

**[From: Izzy] [13:30]**

_Didn’t mean it about the spine, sorry, just a bit really very quite seriously fucking stressed out here Alec. Where are you??? If you were literally anyone else I’d think you were letting off steam but you’re literally MADE of steam_

**[From: Izzy] [12:59]**

_Okay fun’s over, mom just said something about the envoy arriving soon. Why’d you have to choose right now to develop a spine???_

He ignores them all, in spite of the fact that his sister seems genuinely concerned. He’s angry all the time at the moment, the weight of expectation on his shoulders threatening to cripple him from the second he wakes up to the moment he climbs back into bed. He can’t even remember what set him off today (though the memory of Clary and Jace sucking face in the middle of the op centre isn’t exactly helping), but he can feel the sheer violent heat of it coursing through his veins, throbbing like a drumbeat. He kind of really needs to shoot at something for a while. Something that’s going to fight back.

He should probably be less pleased when he comes across a couple of Raum demons going for a terrified mundane down a back alley, but when he fires off an arrow and tells her to run it’s with a furious delight humming beneath his skin. She does as instructed, and Alec barely gets a breath into his lungs before the demons are on him.

He’s been training more than usual recently, pushing himself until the worried looks from his sister had gotten too pointed to ignore. This, though, is better. There’s a tangible result, the screeching cries of something entirely non-human as he sinks a jewel-bright seraph blade into soft flesh somehow a little more rewarding.

He knows that’s a little fucked up. He ignores it.

The first Raum demon goes down in minutes, and Alec is moments from sending the other one back to hell when his phone buzzes in his pocket; it’s brief, but in that split-second of distraction, a tentacle bypasses his blade and the hot pain of needle-sharp teeth bursts into life across his neck. He swears, but manages to bring the seraph blade down at the right angle to remove the tentacle entirely from its owner; the demon wails and Alec rips the limp appendage from his neck, starting a timer in his head even as he leaps back into the fight.

The proximity of the venom to his head isn’t ideal, but he knows he’s got about 5 minutes before it really starts to affect him. He doesn’t need that long.

By the time the second demon is dispatched, he’s starting to feel light-headed. He pulls his stele out of his jacket pocket with a trembling hand and activates his iratze rune, focus sharpening just slightly as the throbbing pain in his neck dulls into a background ache. He turns out of the alley and back onto the main road, glamour up and mind running through his options as he walks. If he goes back to the Institute, they’ll get him patched up; they’ve got anti-venom there, and the only thing he’ll have to endure is several days of lectures on his irresponsible behaviour. Izzy will be angry and disappointed in the way only his sister can, and his parents will see this as just another reason why he should settle down and marry some poor girl who doesn’t realise she’s setting herself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Or…

Alec comes to a stop, only just managing to sway clumsily out of the path of a mundane. He hadn’t even realised where his feet had been taking him, but he can see now that he’s less than a block from Magnus’s loft. Magnus, who doesn’t owe him anything, but who might be willing to help him out anyway, for reasons he’s trying not to examine too closely. Magnus, who always seems to see right to the heart of him, and probably won’t judge him too harshly for having needed the questionable release of violence.

Magnus, who twists his stomach in knots and makes him think about things he’s really not _allowed_ to want. It’s dangerous, and Alec really shouldn’t be throwing himself down this path when it’s becoming pretty clear to him that he’s running out of exits the further he goes.

No, he should go back to the Institute. He’s dealt with his parents’ ire his entire life; it’s not like this is going to be _worse_. Plus, he’s starting to feel kind of awful, venom making him sluggish and uncoordinated. He can’t afford for his guard to be down around a man he… around Magnus.

He’s leaning on Magnus’s buzzer five minutes later.

➸

“Not that I’m not delighted to see you, Alexander, but I hope you won’t be offended when I say you’ve looked better.” Magnus lets Alec into the apartment and guides him over to the couch with a gentle hand on the small of his back. It feels good, but it doesn’t have to mean anything. It really _cannot_ mean anything.

“Sorry,” he says automatically, the urge to apologise for his existence almost overwhelming as the venom starts to take out his other brain functions. “D’you have Raum demon anti-venom? Got me in the neck. Not feeling good.” That’s kind of an understatement; he feels a bit like if he moves his head too quickly it’s going to detach from his neck and roll away across the hardwood.

“Sit down,” Magnus commands, suddenly all business as he gently but firmly pushes Alec down onto the sofa. He tilts Alec’s chin so he can better assess the damage, then there’s a flicker of blue light and Alec slumps forward with a gasp as the pain recedes almost entirely; the relief makes him feel weak and shaky.

“Thanks,” he says breathlessly, and Magnus hums distractedly as he manhandles Alec into a seated position, moving away through an open doorway a moment later without another word. Alec can hear the clink of glass and wonders vaguely if this is really the time for cocktails, but when Magnus reappears it’s with a small vial of very recognisable fluid.

“What warlock worth their salt doesn’t have a good stock of anti-venom on hand?” he says with a smile, handing the vial to Alec. Their fingers brush and Alec feels the usual shocking warmth of connection that he’s come to associate with Magnus.

“Thanks,” he says gratefully, ignoring that feeling completely and knocking back the anti-venom with a grimace. It tastes awful, but then it always does. It gets to work almost instantly, and Alec feels a tightness he’d been mostly unaware of loosen in his chest; he hands the vial back to Magnus who vanishes it with a flick of his fingers before settling next to him on the sofa.

“Now, would you like to tell me why you _needed_ Raum anti-venom?” he asks mildly. “While I’m partial to the post-battle look on you, I believe the Institute is well equipped to deal with this themselves.” Alec sighs and leans back a little harder into the couch cushions.

“I didn’t mean to come here,” he admits, then feels awful for saying it. He swallows and tries again. “I mean… I meant to go back to the Institute. I just ended up here. The venom hit me harder than I expected.” It’s a shitty excuse, if it’s an excuse at all; he hasn’t really given an explanation for why he’d found himself drawn to the loft rather than the one place in the world he’s ever thought of as home.

He feels a gentle hand on his arm and jumps, twisting his body reflexively and meeting Magnus’s eyes. He looks kind and it shouldn’t crack something inside of him, but it does, a part of him splintering and making him a little more vulnerable in the process.

“You mistake my meaning, Alexander,” Magnus says with an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers where they rest on the fabric of Alec’s sleeve. “You’re always welcome here. But why were you out fighting Raum demons when it seems quite clear that nobody at the Institute was aware that you were doing so?”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Alec didn’t come here because he was afraid of what his parents would do, or of the look Izzy would give him when he entered the building. He’s been dealing with the impossible goals set for him by his parents, as well as Izzy’s well-meaning hovering, for a great deal longer than is really reasonable.

He came here tonight because he wanted to. He _wants_ to be here, with Magnus, because it feels better than being anywhere else. It fills a gaping hole inside him that doesn’t seem to be satisfied by anything outside of these four walls; it’s like he’s been drowning for years and suddenly Magnus has handed him a lifeline.

“I’ve been dealing with a lot,” he says honestly; he sounds flat, but he’s not sure how to say this emotionally, how to take hold of the roiling mass of feelings in his gut and vocalise them. “Everything’s falling apart at the Institute and… I, um. I wanted to see you.” He swallows. “I feel different with you. Better.” 

The disjointed sentence hangs in the air between them like a physical presence. Magnus’s hand is still on his arm, just resting against the bland, utilitarian jacket sleeve like something so glamorous could actually belong there.

The hand moves, eventually, though Alec doesn’t know how much time has passed. The hand, each finger glittering with rings and chains in the low light, sweeps up his arm with a whisper of skin on fabric; he feels his own breath seize in his chest as the hand reaches his shoulder and travels further still. Magnus cups his cheek, fingers splaying across the skin there and cradling his jawline, and Alec feels broken and made whole simultaneously.

“You feel different for me too.”

Alec’s not sure what gives him the confidence, the sheer _gall_ , to move in, but he does. His mouth finds Magnus’s with an accuracy born of luck rather than skill, and all thought leaves Alec’s head for a brief, beautiful moment in time. He feels the startled intake of breath from Magnus like an electric shock, and almost pulls away before he realises the hand that had been on his face is now tangled in his hair, holding him in place. Magnus pulls him in, mouth opening under Alec’s, and suddenly there’s nothing else but this.

Magnus’s almost-smile against his mouth is warm; his skin is warm; the blood in Alec’s veins is _warm_ , reaching greater heights with every flick of tongue and press of teeth. He feels the welcoming weight of that slow, syrupy heat like it’s the only sensation left to him _._ The simple press of Magnus’s lips against his has turned the room sweetly arid, and Alec feels sweat prickling at the base of his spine in a vague attempt to fight it off.

He so very much does not want to fight it off. He wants this heat to _consume_ him.

When Magnus pulls away a little while later, Alec follows, and he ends up half sprawled on top of Magnus; he misses his mouth by a long shot but ends up at Magnus's throat instead and that's almost as good.

"Alexander," Magnus murmurs, arching and moving sinuously beneath him like something out of a dream. A very, _very_ specific dream. Alec's been having a few of those recently, and they've been enlightening for all that he's tried to ignore them.

Magnus's hand pressing firmly against his chest a moment later helps Alec come back to himself, and he pulls away like he's been shocked. The only thing that stops him standing up and fleeing on autopilot is that same hand clenching in the worn fabric of his t-shirt. The feeling is grounding.

"Easy," Magnus soothes, leaning up for another soft kiss that still manages to completely wreck Alec's head. When Magnus pulls back again, he looks soft and pleased, and his hair is a little dishevelled. The smudged and hazy quality of the image makes something fiercely proud flare up in Alec's gut. 

"I don't usually-" Alec stops himself, half hating the breathiness of his own voice, but mostly just having no idea how to finish that sentence. He doesn't usually _what_? Go around getting poisoned and then kissing beautiful men on their couches? Magnus _knows_ he doesn't do this. It's been kind of a sticking point.

"I don't want to send you running," Magnus says eventually, taking pity on him and taking up the conversation as they manoeuvre themselves into a seated position. "I've had plenty of first-rate fantasies regarding what we can get up to on this couch, but I think you should probably… think about what you want. Do you know what you want, Alec?" Magnus has let go of his shirt and is looking at him with a carefully neutral expression, though his mouth looks distractingly well-used and his hair is still an artful mess. Alec looks down at his hands instead.

Magnus is giving him an out.

What _does_ Alec want? He knows what he _doesn’t_ want, but when he thinks about his own needs and desires, he hits a brick wall. He’s never really learned to want much, and the things that he has historically craved in secret aren't exactly points of pride for him. See, for example, Jace.

It’s actually mostly just Jace.

Right now, staring down at his hands - hands which, until very recently, had been touching a very beautiful man - he thinks about how safe it had been, really, to want Jace. Nothing could have ever happened, and his _parabatai_ would never have left him even if he’d known how Alec felt. He’s not sure if it’s ever been love, not really, but he’s so used to the crush and so wholly devoted to his family that maybe… Maybe those feelings got conflated somewhere along the line. He doesn’t _know._

Then Alec thinks about how unsafe it feels here, in Magnus’s loft, although not in the way he’d been expecting. Magnus makes him feel something fractured and a little out of control; he feels like he’s always known who he is, but Magnus makes him realise he’s never really known _anything._

He breathes, and the exhalation is shaky and apologetic.

“I probably need to think about that,” he says eventually, even though he’s terrified that saying so will make Magnus angry or upset. He thinks ‘upset’ would actually be worse, and doesn’t get too far into that particular shame spiral before one of Magnus’s hands is sliding over his where they’re clenched in his lap.

“Breathe, Alexander,” he says quietly, leaning forward until their foreheads are pressed together. The contact is soothing, and maybe it’s magic but Alec suspects it’s something entirely more organic. “You can have all the time you need. I am an immortal being, after all - I can be very patient.” Alec huffs out a laugh at that, and he doesn’t mean to but somehow he ends up kissing Magnus again; it’s brief, and a little claiming, and it leaves Alec dizzy and aching.

It happens again at the door, Alec winding up pressed against it with Magnus’s hands on his face and Alec’s fingers tightening on Magnus’s hips. There’s a sort of quiet desperation to the kiss that Alec thinks might easily become addictive; he’s already struggling to remember who he’d been before he’d felt Magnus’s mouth on his.

“Just leaving you with lots to think about,” Magnus says as they finally part, sounding equal parts smug and breathless. His fingers brush gently over Alec’s jaw as he pulls away, taking a couple of steps away to put some space between them; to Alec, right now, it feels like a yawning chasm. He quite desperately wants to close it.

“Yeah,” he says instead, opening the door and swallowing against the dryness in his throat. “Lots of material to work with. I’ll text you or… something.” Magnus smiles at him, and the warmth and certainty of it carries Alec back to the Institute and through at least thirty minutes of his parents’ lecture on safety and propriety.

➸

The Clave envoy is called Lydia Branwell, and Alec manages to avoid her for a solid two hours before she corners him in the library. Annoyingly, Alec thinks he might like her, even though she’s technically here to judge his entire family’s performance and feed back to the Clave on how terribly they’re all doing at keeping the Institute afloat.

She also reveals some interesting information about his parents that he doesn’t even want to think about, and some equally alarming news about the female population of Idris. He’s not sure if he should feel as horrified by the thought of an arranged marriage to a woman as he is by the knowledge that his parents were both in the Circle, but he kind of is. He’d already known about it, in theory, but the fact that it’s all over Alicante…? It’s a little overwhelming.

“You can’t let them do this,” Izzy reiterates, cornering him before he can get to his room later that night, having clearly abused her ‘silence’ rune to sneak up on him.

“I can’t let who do what?” he asks flatly, like he doesn’t know exactly who and what she’s talking about. Izzy fixes him with a look that could melt through concrete.

“You can’t marry some random woman for the sake of the Lightwood name, Alec,” she says desperately, seemingly close to tears. He sighs and runs a hand over his face, then crosses his arms.

“I know, Iz.” This seems to floor her.

“You mean-”

“I’m not marrying anyone right now,” he interrupts her firmly. He pauses, then takes a leap of faith. “Especially not a woman.”

The hug Izzy gives him nearly cracks his ribs.

➸

Alec sleeps poorly, thoughts a mess of heated touches and awkward imagined conversations. He’s furious with his parents, angry with himself for not realising sooner how much of a fucking mess his whole life is, and even angrier that he didn’t just… stay at Magnus’s place. It’s not like he hasn’t spent the night there before. At least he’d feel like himself there.

And that’s what it comes down to, really; that’s what makes him scramble for his phone before the sun’s even started to show its face above the New York skyline. Magnus makes Alec feel like _himself_.

He sends the text with shaking fingers, then spends the next half an hour sitting on his bed and trying not to have a panic attack.

**[To: Magnus] [05:36]**

_You. I want you._

When Magnus finally responds, Alec feels like he’s gone through several stages of grief, but the lurching hope in his stomach when he reads the text is like nothing he’s ever felt before.

**[From: Magnus] [06:10]**

_An excellent starting point. Let’s see where wanting takes us._

**Author's Note:**

> Tintagel asked for hurt/comfort, canon-divergent, "twenty minutes before Lydia shows up". I'm kind of terrible at hurting Alec, but the comfort is REAL.
> 
> Also managed to prove that I can write a fic of these guys without them banging, and I'm weirdly proud of myself. Good job, buddy.


End file.
